


Et tu?

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Forever (TV), Iron Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:58:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: There is a man in Henry's laboratory."Who are you?" He asks, even though there are very few this side of the would that do not know this man's name. That is not the question."Can't you deduce it?" Tony Stark dares him. "You know how some people there are certain faces, features for every age? Look at me. Come on, Doc. Do your worst."    The value of names, Shakespeare, and holding a stranger's hands in the dark.





	

 

 

There is a man in Henry's laboratory.

He is sprawled all over the chair used for experiences, administered on Henry by Henry. His posture is easy, head tilted back. His hands are crossed over his stomach, and even before recognising him, Henry is reminded of a cat at rest, something haughty and with many lives, less so than a patient in a freudian couch.

"Who are you?" He asks, even though there are very few this side of the would that do not know this man's name. That is not the question.

"Can't you deduce it?" Tony Stark dares him. "You know how some people there are certain faces, features for every age? Look at me. Come on, Doc. Do your worst."

Henry sits down on a stool and looks. Tony Stark is so still that is not unlike dissecting a body.

"Caucasian man, probably from the Mediterranean. Age from late thirties to early fifties. Dark brown hair, silvering at the temples. Dark eyes." Sharp eyes. Old, but only because he knew they were. "An expressive mouth behind a goatee, of the modern fashion. Long nose, pointed." Stark wrinkles it, makes a funny face. Henry huffs.

Wordlessly, he offers his hands. Stark hesitates, a moment there and gone, before letting him examine them. The fingers are long and scarred in places an engineer's shouldn't be. This examination he did silently. There was a slice on his thumb, a burn mark in his palm. Calluses, from holding either a blade or a blowtorch. Smaller scars in his knuckles, a finger that turned a little to the left.

"The patient's name?"

Stark smiles, all sharp edges and faded mirth. "Anthony Edward Stark. Son of Howard Samuel and Maria Carbonell."

Henry leans back in his chair. Stark meant strong in many languages, Scottish from the Middle English, Ashkenazic and German. Unyielding, brave, determined. The first name could either be fake or a variation, but in his time he'd found he treasured his own birth name. Stark was older and less sentimental, but that was a possibility. Edward, then, that was Gaelic, welsh, old english. Norse, but he didn't have the look. Howard was anglo-scandinavian, germanic if you went further back . Samuel was a biblical name, the prophet who crowned Saul and supported David, the prayed for son of Ana. Mother was Maria, Miriam, Marius, Mars.

"Ah," Henry said, very softly. He clears his throat, and remembers the oratory lessons of his first life.

"“Cowards die many times before their deaths;  
The valiant never taste of death but once.  
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,  
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;  
Seeing that death, a necessary end,  
Will come when it will come.”

The man who is called Tony Stark agrees, grinning. "Yes. Yes."

"Mark Anthony." Henry is a surgeon. His hands are not shaking. The small hairs around his body, however, were at the moment defying gravity.

"Marcus Antonius," he corrects. "People always forget the latin. The modern intonation sucks, by the way, it's not nearly that close to Italian."

Henry laughs, shakily. "I imagine."

"Old Will was the last person I told. He was a pretty great fellow. Funny. A nice lay, too. Wrote me a whole book, the bastard."

"Mr --"

"Marcus." The words escape him. He does not look like he wanted to say them, but he also does not look like he could stand to hold them further. He passes a hand through his hair, and now it is his time to blink fast. "Marcus. No one has called me that in ages."

It is not an exaggeration, and the weight of it fills the half-lit laboratory in a basement in the house of an dead man. They look at each other. Henry thinks about displacing his hands, or using them like a scalpel, to prod a wound to light. He hates himself for the thought.

And besides. He is holding on just as tightly.

"Why now?" He asks, awed, very young. "Is it because of Adam?"

His companion flinches, full bodies. Henry puzzles on it for a moment, amazement making him slow, before he cringes. Ah. Adam, nose patrician and blade terribly old and mouth cruel like an old bust given life.

"No," he hisses shortly. Then he sighs. "Yes. Perhaps. I knew, of course."

"I suspected," Henry confesses. It hadn't been anything in particular, but everything. Even one so distanced from social media as him knew Tony Stark's profile , the angles of his gestures. There had been something old about him, not his money, not his eyes, even. Just his words. He lied too well for the age he acted he faked.

Marcus lifts an eyebrow, curious. "Did you? Sharp of you. I had Jarvis line up all the documents, find the photos. You did a -decent job, covering your tracks. Not very good, wont hold in a couple of decades, but it lasted so far, so kudos to you. Thought about visiting your grave, but that would be just weird."

He laughs, free and sudden and willingly charmed. "Yes, quite."

"Still. It must be good, to know it's not just you and him." Him. Julius Ceaser. Dear Lord. Abe was going to have conniption. Henry was not quite sure if he wasn't going to have a conniption.

Marcus blinks at him, and then he laughed as well. His hands, Henry can not help but notice,  
curl around his. A cage, or a vault holding a keepsake.

"Oh, Henry," he chuckles. "You are so young. How many of us do you think there are?"

He licks his lips. "Three. Seven, at the most." Seven is a strong number, and he was long past the point of discarding numerology.

He is trembling. Numbers, names, old hands in his. It is too much and too little and not at all like a dream.

"Count the stars, Henry," he suggests, not kindly, not unkindly. Unyieldingly. "They're a good guess, and they're usually at fault."

**Author's Note:**

> The speech is from Julius Ceaser, by William Shakespeare. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always welcome.


End file.
